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Life: Birth of a Hybrid The egg was ready to hatch. The baby raptor pecked at the inside of the shell, squeaking quietly. A shadow passed in front of his egg—he was only being born, and he already knew that it was his mother. A crack appeared in the shell, sunlight blinding him for a moment. His mother cooed gently, urging the hatchling to break free. He pushed once, twice, a third time, and his head broke through the eggshell. The baby paused to catch his breath. The world around him was fuzzy, and he squeaked in surprise as he felt his mother’s tongue licking albumen off of his tiny, frail body. He surrendered to the larger raptor, feeling loved. There was a shriek of alarm from nearby. A male raptor, presumably his mother’s mate, looked like he was going to rip the baby to shreds… and then his mother. His mother was not so easily swayed, though. She bared her teeth and claws, making her intentions clear: she would fight and die for this one hatchling. What the newborn didn’t know was that he was the only living member of his brood; his brothers and sisters had either died in the egg, or died shortly after being born. To his mother, he was one in a million—to the rest of the world, he was a freak of nature. His mother’s mate begrudgingly slinked away, leaving mother and son alone. She cleaned him up, and examined him from the tip of his snout, to the end of his tail. For the most part, he was a yellow that was almost gold, with black stripes. A single blue stripe ran horizontally along each side of his body, close to his spine. His eyes were a clear, intense blue, with catlike pupils. His underbelly was black—an oddity for both subspecies of Velociraptor on the island. He had a pair of well defined crests above his eyes, the same color as the stripes on his body. To top it off, it looked like he would develop a blue quill crest. This hatchling—this accident—was special, and precious to his mother. She examined his dead brothers and sisters, the unfertilized eggs, and she came up with a name for her beautiful baby boy: Ignika—Life. She cooed to her baby. She knew he would be looked down on, ridiculed, and possibly killed, just because he wasn’t supposed to exist. But whatever didn’t kill him would make him much stronger, and he would be an able warrior and hunter. He would outshine his peers. He combined the best of both raptor subspecies; he would survive to a ripe old age. But for now, mother and son slept, Ignika curled up in between his mother’s chest and arms. In order to grab Ignika, an attempted killer would have to wake her up… and she would rip their throat out. For her beautiful baby boy.
